House O' Sullivans

Zeke's birthday request was to go camping, so camp we did. (We went camping in Maple Canyon last year for his birthday with the Paynes and the Bellinis and had so much fun that Zeke called for a repeat.) Last week--the week after we got back from Nauvoo--we headed up to Redman in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We actually went up on reconnaissance the Tuesday of that week (and for some hiking at Brighton with my friend Kim) to see if we could finagle the camphost into letting us come up a day before the site officially opened (which was allegedly on Friday that week). We didn't ever locate the camphost, but some U.S. Forestry people that we found in the woods told us Redman opened on Wednesday, so no problemo. We showed up at Redman on Thursday morning and the gate was locked with a "Site Closed" sign hanging ominously before us, but this was a celebration of Zeke's birthday and we couldn't be deterred. (Fie on those misinformed forest service people!!) Thankfull...

Several months ago I challenged my sister, Mary, to get off the couch and run a half-marathon with me. She didn't disappoint, even though she'd only trained up to a 3 mile run. I'm still amazed by that incidental fact.  The race (Drop 13) starts near Solitude up Big Cottonwood Canyon and we'd hatched an epic plan to stay the night before at the Silver Fork Lodge, just a few blocks form the starting line, thus avoiding ridiculously early wake up times, obnoxious busing up the canyon, and freezing at the starting line for hours. The night before we leisurely dined at on of our favorite restaurants, the Kathmandu, then ditched Mary's car at the finish line. From there, we put our things on our backs and walked a couple of miles to the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon and proceeded to hitch-hike up to the lodge. Give it up for the Cottonwood High School girl's basketball team for giving the ladies a ride. Three middle-aged women must have looked intimidating beca...

We've been planning this epic trip since Casey's parents left on their mission to Nauvoo over a year ago. We knew with nearly 4 days of driving alone and considering Casey's limited time off that this would be our big trip for the summer--a week and a half of road tripping and Nauvoo.  We started the epic after Casey got home from work the Friday before Memorial Day. We stopped at this historic fort along our travel route--Fort Fred Steele--built in 1868 (located near Sinclair, Wyoming on the west bank of the North Platte River) to guard against Indian attacks during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.  Casey worked to restore the old stone building behind him in the picture, literally putting it back together. What a guy! They had closed up the building just before we arrived, but the kind curator let us in when she found out that Casey had put those pieces back together. That Friday we drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming and stayed the night at the Radisson H...